Have you been thinking about hiring a Virtual Assistant but the thought overwhelms you?

I hear it all the time when I’m speaking with a possible client. They know they need a VA but it’s too overwhelming for them. They don’t know where to start, what projects to outsource or how to even get a VA on board with them.

It can be overwhelming in the beginning. And depending on what projects you outsource there may be a learning curve involved. If you are handing over your email to a VA there will be some training that you will need to provide your VA.

I was hired by a client to take over her email. The first week we got on the phone every morning (I check her email twice a day - once in the morning and once in the afternoon) and she walked me through what to do with each email. I took notes for future reference. It was smooth sailing after that. She was comfortable in my ability to handle it from then on and I was confident in my ability to do it. Hiring me as her VA to take over her email saved her several hours a week. I do in 2-3 hours a week what she was doing in 2-3 hours a day!

If you don’t feel comfortable outsourcing something as large as email management in the beginning start with smaller projects. Make a list of the tasks that you do for your business - article marketing, press release submission, blog posting, website updating, keyword research, etc and narrow it down to the project(s) that you hate doing and outsource those.

A large number of my clients have hired me to handle their press release submissions and article submissions. I have also recently started doing blog posting for clients that just don’t have the time to keep up with their blogs.

It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Start small and work your way up. The idea behind outsourcing is to not only get off your plate the things you don’t like doing but to free up some time so you can work on incoming producing projects.

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I currently have openings in my schedule for some hourly projects or retainer clients. Contact me at tishialee@gmail.com

The cross blog conversation between Tricia of Time Saver VA and myself continues. If this is your first time here please go to our first conversation and follow along. Tricia and I have been doing this CBC for awhile now. She’s asked me some great questions and I enjoy hearing ‘newbie’ questions. Once again she’s asked me a great question.

Tricia asks:

Tishia, do you make your clients sign agreement forms?

Yes and no Tricia. This is actually something that I have to start getting better at doing. I need to make every client sign one especially my retainer clients. For awhile I was doing good about making new clients sign them. If a client doesn’t ask I tend to not push the issue.

For more than one reason that isn’t the smartest business move. A signed contract not only protects my client as well as myself but it also states all my policies, rates, late fee, etc plain as day. If an issue were to ever arise, I’d have a contract to fall back on.

Now I’ve made a post-it note to myself that I need to update my contract and start making it mandatory that all clients sign one. Thanks for asking that question & reminding me how important contracts really are!

A Question for Tricia:

Do you make your clients sign contracts? 

Ok so I know it wasn’t very original turning around and asking you the same question Tricia but now I’m curious as to what your policy is.

The cross blog conversation between Tricia of Time Saver VA and myself continues. If this is your first time here please go to our first conversation and follow along.

First I have to apologize that it has taken me over a week to answer Tricia’s question. As we all know sometimes life happens and things need to be taken care of while we let something else sit on the back burner. Let’s just say life happened and I had to take care of some things and get myself sorted out. Thankfully I am blessed to work at home and can take some time off when needed.

But now it’s time to get back to the cross blog conversation and onto answering Tricia’s question.

Tricia Asks:

When you struggle to find content for your website blog what do you do?

One of my weak areas is adding content to my site on a regular basis. Before anyone attacks me with the “content is king” lecture let me defend myself and say that I have somethings up my sleeve to implement that will take care of this issue

Until I have my ducks in a row and start doing what I have planned I have been writing about products that I’m using, membership sites, etc. I’ve thrown in a blog post with a new customer testimonial…anything that comes to mind I blog about.

I’ve just recently set up Google Alerts for some different business related terms that I hope will also help inspire some content creation. And I’ll also be checking into some PLR items because I absolutely love rewriting PLR (guess you can imagine that’s one of my services I offer…LOL) and I also have thought about using a Ghost Writer as well.

I hope that gives you some ideas Tricia and answered your question.

A Question for Tricia:

We all learn from our mistakes. Think back to when you first started your business until now. What is the one mistake that made you cringe when it happened but you learned a valuable lesson from it?

Client testimonials always make me smile. It’s been awhile since I’ve thought about asking for one and I was pleasantly surprised when a recent client sent one without me even asking! It was so wonderful hearing her praises…after all who doesn’t like being praised?

I thoroughly enjoyed the transcription job I did for her. I have to check out her products after transcribing her audio. It was wonderful and jam packed full of great info!

Here’s what Marcia had to say:

“Tishia, thanks very much for the transcription. You did an awesome job in both speed and quality of work. Especially with my South African accent.

I would recommend your services to anyone and will put your name down as a resource in my “million dollar rolodex” so that my clients can also reach you.” (June 2008)

Marcia Francois
Time management expert & Speaker
http://takechargesolutions.org/

By now you probably have heard about Nicole Dean & Darina Loakman’s website for women freelancers - Shelancers. If you haven’t heard about it, let me tell you a little about it.

When the site first launched, I grabbed the introductory special price they were offering. I wasn’t planning on continuing my subscription. I was honestly just wanting to go in, look around and see what it was all about. Once I joined and began looking around I realized it was worth the minimal monthly fee to stay a member.

Nicole and Darina have done a nice job of putting together a site for women freelancers where they offer monthly resources. You’ll find audio or video resources, special reports, etc. A new feature they just recently added is the forum.

If you are looking for a way to get your business name out there check out Shelancers.